“Why don’t you just give away your information for free?”

I got an email this morning that riled me up.

Not from a Breakthrough Marketing Secrets reader. I think you guys know better.

Nope, this was from someone who had literally just opted in to receive free email lessons on how to cut foam wings for model airplanes. I offer these in an autoresponder series that also offers a 2-hour video tutorial for sale. The video is something my dad had created, was selling on eBay, and that I eventually helped him set up a site to sell.

Now, we sell this video for $29, with a money-back guarantee. It teaches methods that didn’t exist before my dad created them. And probably at least 95% of our customers are happy with their purchase.

Well, Randolph — not a customer — was not happy after opting in and getting my first (FREE) lesson. Here’s what he wrote…

 

Oh Randolph, where should I start?

Actually, I shouldn’t, and you shouldn’t if you’re confronted by a Randolph. Because if you sell online for long enough — especially if you sell information — these people will consume you.

But it’s Web Wednesday, and as such, I thought this would make for a good lesson on the trappings of selling things online.

First, my response. And this is all Randolph will ever get (unless he stumbles on this!).

 

Okay, on to Randolph’s email…

First off, the grammar is the grammar. I pointed it out — and I definitely didn’t correct it to share here.

If you want to complain to me, at least try. Don’t spew out bad grammar, misused words, and no punctuation if you want to get anything from anybody. It won’t take you far.

Yes, in copy you can intentionally play around with grammar rules — to capture a “voice” that doesn’t conform to perfect grammar. But not this, buddy.

But that’s all I’ll say about that.

Let’s talk about the insidious thinking behind Randolph’s email…

In 1984, technology activist Stuart Brand told Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak…

“On one hand information wants to be expensive, because it’s so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.”

Now, very few people really want to hear the “information wants to expensive” part.

And humans are subject to “confirmation bias” — we only pay attention to what confirms our current beliefs.

And so what stuck wasn’t this nuanced description of the push and pull in the value of information.

It was, “Information wants to be free.”

Which was quickly commandeered by the gimme, entitlement mentality to mean, “If it’s stored in bits and bytes, you have no right to sell it and in fact you should invest your time, energy, and resources into making it available for free.”

This quickly became the morals of the internet generation…

File sharing, illegal downloading, and so on became seen as “victim-less” crimes.

And yes, we’ve all done it — at least those of us with moderate computer skills. We’ve downloaded songs or whatever else we can find online, without paying for them.

Doesn’t make it right — and hopefully you’ve learned to moderate within yourself the appeal of free and instant, in favor of supporting the producer. I know I’ve certainly paid for a ton that I know I could get free as fast as I could buy it.

Or at the very least, taking what’s offered free as free (such as Breakthrough Marketing Secrets) and finding other ways to support the producer.

For example, I’ve tried hard to financially support certain podcasts that have been influential to my thinking — through other products that they sell.

Nonetheless, this mentality seems to be as strong — and belligerent — as ever.

Randolph’s email only underscores it.

Not only does he choose to complain that — gasp — an information producer should be paid for their efforts like anyone else…

He actually threatens to create an alternate version of my product just to give it away on YouTube!

What a jerk.

All because he’s bought into this hyper-simplified version of the original statement that contained the idea of “information wants to be free.”

And because he doesn’t think for himself about the time and effort it takes to produce an instructional video, and the fact that my family has to eat, too. And so on.

Which brings me to…

Information producers deserve to be paid for their efforts…

Maybe this is my own confirmation bias. But we all have value we contribute to society. I don’t know what Randolph’s is. But part of mine is producing information that makes other people’s lives easier.

I can only afford to put together and publish that information — as opposed to doing something else that pays the bills — if the information is given value in the marketplace.

Now I’m not trying to put a minimum price on information.

I think the market has to decide that.

But FREE is not a good minimum price for information. Because free is unsustainable.

Yes, you can use free as a marketer, to display and deliver value as part of making a bigger sale. You can choose to give away some information for free, just because you want to help others.

But there’s virtue in creating a profitable business. There’s virtue in publishing information for others.

Even if you’re simply gathering information and putting it into an easier-to-consume form — so others don’t have to do their own gathering — you’re creating tremendous value.

You’re saving the time, effort, testing, and filtering that go into getting and using information on how-to topics.

That has a value in the market. And to assault someone because they’ve put a price on it — which you can choose to or choose NOT to pay — is arrogant, ignorant, and downright rude.

And I’m certainly not being greedy with this project…

Just to address this one point…

The model airplane market is tiny enough. Folks willing to build their own versus buying an ready-to-fly in the stores is even smaller. Folks who build something not from a kit, or build their own replacement wings, even smaller still. And folks who cut their own foam as part of building their own is even yet a fraction of that.

This is not a profit market.

This is not a greedy market.

If I wanted to make real money, I would be a million miles away from the how to cut foam wings for model airplanes market. My dad and I built and maintain that site because it provides value to a small group of fellow hobbyists.

Yes, we want to get paid in return. But the value is tremendous, and there’s a 100% satisfaction guarantee if you don’t agree after watching the video.

It’s not about greed.

The big lesson here…

I’ve let myself get worked up about this, because it’s an illustrative lesson for Breakthrough Marketing Secrets.

Otherwise, I hemmed and hawed for a minute, and sent that email.

That should be the extent you let someone like Randolph interrupt your day and your business.

In fact, you should even create a template email that says that, so you don’t even have to think about what to say.

Because these people will take everything you’ll give ‘em, and spit it back at you double.

Your best course of action is to make sure that they know they’re not welcome, remove them from your email list, and walk away.

No matter what you’re selling — and especially online — you’re going to run into your own Randolphs. (Clients can be Randolphs too — not just customers of information products.)

If you try to change their mind, it will drain you. If you do convince them to become a customer, they’ll be the worst you ever had. If you don’t walk away, a small band of Randolphs could potentially take down an otherwise healthy business by making you focus on all the wrong things.

But if you don’t let them get inside you, they won’t get the reaction they want so they’ll go elsewhere. Good riddance!

Yours for bigger breakthroughs,

Roy Furr

Editor, Breakthrough Marketing Secrets